In Oscars for 'Titanic,' An Omen of More Power For Big-Budget Directors

In accepting his Academy Award for directing ''Titanic,'' James Cameron raised his arm and said with glee, ''I'm king of the world.''

On the one hand, the comment -- a line from the film -- startled many producers and executives in Hollywood, who are accustomed to Oscar speeches with a degree of humility. On the other hand, Mr. Cameron was absolutely right.

Despite going over budget on ''Titanic'' by at least $100 million, despite an abrasive reputation, which was somewhat evident at the Oscar ceremonies as ''Titanic'' tied the record set by ''Ben-Hur'' with 11 Academy Awards, Mr. Cameron is most definitely king of the world, at least by Hollywood standards.

His film has grossed $1.2 billion worldwide, a modern-day box office record. And that's what counts in Hollywood.

Yet what's so strange about Mr. Cameron's triumph is that the industry that complains almost daily about the high cost of making films and the profligacy of the movie business has honored the director whose $200 million production, financed by 20th Century Fox and Paramount, was marked by enormous cost overruns. In Mr. Cameron's defense, he was honored not for frugality but because he made a film that audiences adore.

In fact Mr. Cameron's next epic, which may be a remake of ''Planet of the Apes,'' will probably be given the green light by the same executives at 20th Century Fox whose jobs were in peril when the costs of ''Titanic'' rose out of control. (Paradoxically, ''The Full Monty,'' financed by Fox, cost a mere $3.5 million and could turn a profit of $100 million, making its rate of return the highest last year.)

Confronted with the notion that they are being a little two-faced by honoring ''Titanic,'' Hollywood executives and producers came up with several responses.

''You don't make morality judgments,'' said a prominent Hollywood lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''You don't make judgments about whether Cameron is on budget or arrogant. It's all about the work. He wasn't voted humanitarian of the year. You assume he's going to do it again. You know what you're getting.''

Frank Price, a veteran producer who also ran Universal and Columbia Studios, said Hollywood was hardly any more hypocritical than any other place. ''We're all capable of holding simultaneously conflicting beliefs,'' he said.

''Everybody is in favor of watching budgets and controlling costs,'' he said. ''But in the history of Hollywood, the people with the courage, daring and costs to put themselves on the line and spend what it takes to make something right have either been vilified if they failed or made into heroes if they succeeded.''

Perhaps.

But in recent years, especially with the rise of talent agents and lawyers, studios that once wielded enormous power have, in some cases, yielded power to directors almost from the moment the filmmaker starts production. The results are sometimes disastrous.

Although executives at Warner Brothers, for example, were reluctant to hand over the film adaptation of ''Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil'' to Clint Eastwood, largely because they felt the star was inappropriate to direct the offbeat drama, Mr. Eastwood wanted to do the film. No one says No to Clint. So Mr. Eastwood directed the film, and it misfired badly. In fairness to Warner Brothers and Mr. Eastwood, he has proved to be perhaps the most durable, successful and fiscally responsible filmmaker at any of the studios.

Similarly, Universal virtually handed over the bank keys to Kevin Costner, whose last two films, ''Waterworld'' and especially ''The Postman,'' were big-budget flops. Danny DeVito's two films, ''Hoffa'' for 20th Century Fox and ''Matilda'' for Sony, also went way over budget -- and failed. Yet the impact on the directorial careers of these two actors seems negligible.

This is not to say that Mr. Cameron's career would have remained steady if ''Titanic'' had failed. In the 1970's, for example, when the film industry started to give directors more financial and creative leeway, several filmmakers saw their careers crash amid reports of financial and personal self-indulgence. The most noted was Michael Cimino, whose 1980 film, ''Heaven's Gate,'' was one of Hollywood's greatest flops and almost ruined United Artists, its studio.

''The fact that 'Titanic' is now doing so well is dangerous because some filmmakers will see it as an opportunity to run wild,'' said Peter Biskind, author of a forthcoming book, ''Easy Riders, Raging Bulls'' (Simon & Schuster), about the rise and fall of many directors in the 1970's. ''Before 'Titanic' there was a lot of hand-wringing about the cost of movies. Now some filmmakers are given carte blanche. There'll be a reckoning.''